Timothy F. Rayne, Esquire

Paternity rules in Pennsylvania differ depending on whether a child is born in or out of wedlock

The legal definition of paternity is the "state of being a father." Though it sounds simple, the rules regarding paternity in Pennsylvania differ depending on whether a child is born in or out of wedlock. Below is an explanation of how paternity is determined in each situation.

Children Born Out of Wedlock
Paternity of a child born out of wedlock may be determined in any one of three ways:

• When the child's parents have subsequently married each other, it will be assumed that the child is the husband's.
• If it can be proven that during the child's lifetime the father openly held the child out to be his and either received the child into his home or provided support for the child, it will be assumed that the child is his.

Children Born to a Marriage
For children born to a marriage, the paternity rules in Pennsylvania are more complicated:

1. The Presumption of Paternity
A child born to a married woman is presumed to be a child of that marriage. The purpose of the presumption is to protect and preserve the family unit and to promote the best interests of the child. In such a case, someone other than the husband has no rights to establish his paternity. Instead, the law creates a fiction that, regardless of biology, the married people to whom the child was born are the parents.

In addition, the husband has limited rights to challenge the issue of paternity. If the marriage is still intact at the time of the challenge, paternity of the husband may only be challenged by establishing that the husband was impotent, sterile or had no access to the wife during the relevant time period. Even though there are scientific tests that can establish paternity, the law will not allow such tests without proof of no access, impotency or sterility when an intact marriage exists.

2. Paternity by Estoppel
Under certain circumstances, a person may be estopped (or precluded) from challenging paternity where that person, by his or her conduct, has accepted someone as the father of the child. Again, blood tests are irrelevant because the law will not permit a person in these situations to challenge the status that he or she has previously accepted. For the husband, holding the child out as his own or supporting the child will estop him from denying paternity. For the wife, if she holds the child out as a child of the marriage, she will be estopped from claiming husband is not the father of the child.

Estoppel is based on the public policy that a child should be secure in knowing who his parents are. If a person has acted as the parent and bonded with the child, the child should not be required to suffer the trauma that may come from being told that the father, whom he has known all his life, is, in fact, not his father.

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